


Redecorating

by jazzypizzaz



Series: only know you love him when you let him go [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7839820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzypizzaz/pseuds/jazzypizzaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odo paints the walls of his office.  A fluffy epilogue to ease the pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redecorating

Despite that they spent most of the night together “reconnecting” and really it has only been a couple hours since they last saw each other, Quark can’t help but wander by the security office in the morning.  Everything is more bright and beautiful on DS9 than he remembered – the swooping Cardassian architecture more uplifting than ominous, the laughter echoing down the Promenade delightful music in his ears, people he didn’t realize considered themselves his friends exclaiming with joy over his return –  and Quark strolls down the Promenade with a spring in his step.  Even the recycled air smells better.

When he sees what’s happening at the office, however, Quark stops in his tracks.

(Despite his general giddiness, there is a repressed panic in the pit of his stomach that if he doesn’t go see Odo immediately, none of last night will be real.  Odo will be back in the Great Link, or Quark will be back on Terok Nor, or at the very least Odo will rescind on the romance they’ve started.)

“What?! You’re painting over my heart?”  Quark squawks, horrified.  He scrambles over to Odo, whose hand is outstretched with a paint sprayer, ready to cover the red stains on the wall.  Quark doesn’t necessarily want any reminders of his Terrible Very Bad No Good week, but if the bad stuff is erased maybe the happy ending will be too.

Odo stares at him dubiously.  “It’s not yours; it was the other Quark’s heart.”

“So if it was my heart, you’d keep it up there?”  Quark says, assessing whether he could snatch the sprayer out of Odo’s hand fast enough to throw it in the nearest replicator disposal.

“Of course not. My office is gray, so I’d still repaint it gray.”  Odo turns back towards the wall, ready to spray.

“Wait, stop!”  Quark grabs Odo’s hand and tries yanking the canister out of it.  Odo’s grip is firm though and the canister doesn’t budge.  Quark keeps his hand on Odo’s, looking up at Odo with a scrunched face.  “You’d get rid of my heart?”

Odo scoffs. “Technically you would have disposed of it anyway, by selling off discs of your organs in grand Ferengi tradition.  In any case, you wouldn’t be using it, so why should you care?”

“Because!” Quark hisses, indignant.  “You can’t buy a piece of _my body_ , then wipe it up for the trash with an old rag the next day.”

Odo quirks his head.  “But that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“I just– I thought–” Quark gapes at him, but can’t figure out how to express why this is important to him, so shifts his attention to the rest of the mess.  “Well what about these padds, clean those up instead.  Where did you even get that many anyway?  And why didn’t you just program the info into the computer database for reference?”

Odo simply shrugs, scanning over the heaps of broken padds strewn haphazardly across the floor.  “It seemed easier to sort through, to be able to see everything at once.”  

With Odo distracted by the subject change, Quark again tries to wrest the paint canister from his grip, but when he tugs it melts back into Odo’s hand, the paint that was within it splattering onto Quark’s boots.

Odo snickers loudly, while Quark stands there shocked.  “You should arrest yourself for destruction of private property,” Quark grumbles, scowling at his feet.  “You’re a madman.”

“I had to prove you weren’t dead,” Odo, still chuckling, shifts his hand into a towel and helps mop up some of the paint off the boots then stands up again.

“You didn’t though. You smashed everything.” Quark starts off saying this petulantly, with the intention of pointing out what a nonsensical person Odo is, but his voice starts wavering at the end.  He blinks rapidly trying to hold back the continued panic he feels welling up.  If Odo cleans up all remnants of his reaction to Quark’s death, maybe he’ll want to forget the kisses they shared yesterday.

Odo cocks his head, dead silent and no longer laughing.  “But I was right,” he says, gazing into Quark’s watery eyes, a hint of wonder in his voice.  “You’re alive.”  Odo places his non-painted hand on Quark’s chest, and Quark’s heart threatens to pound out of his rib cage and into Odo’s palm

Leaning into the touch, Quark is met with the gentle brush of Odo’s lips on his.  The tenderness is all too much after everything they went through– it doesn’t feel real to have had such disparate experiences back to back, and Quark doesn’t quite trust it.  The panic in his stomach does settle down a bit, but his heart is now swelling with something hideously like love.

To distract himself from such unsettling emotion, Quark abruptly pulls away and gestures towards the viscera-stained wall.  “Kind of grotesque though isn’t it?  In case you’re not aware since _your_  insides are goo, people don’t really like seeing organs similar to the ones in their own chests smashed on walls.  It’s unsanitary.”

“Then with your permission granted I’ll continue painting,” Odo says, his sarcasm undercut by the giddy grin on his face.  “If I’m going to be staying on as the permanent Chief of Security, this office has to look professional.”

Quark lets out a disgruntled noise, scowling, but the heart inside his chest thuds with  _home_.  Odo isn’t going anywhere.

————-

If a person were to sit at the chair behind the desk– say for example, a security officer burning the midnight fluorescents on an important case– and leans back _just so_ a small red splotch near the ceiling becomes visible.

Odo keeps it as a reminder of the heart he thought he lost forever,  the one he vows to keep always safe.


End file.
